May group read discussion thread: Naked in the Promised Land

[SusanH]

Here is our discussion thread for Naked in the Promised Land. Let us know how far you've read and what you think. As always, beware of spoilers.

[Maribeth]

I just finished this over the weekend. It's funny - I wasn't going to read it but picked it up at the library with some other books I had on hold. I started it with a feeling that it was just another book about somebody with a crummy childhood who overcame it, blah blah blah. I ended up enjoying it immensely. It was fascinating and inspiring and I had a hard time putting it down after I got into it. I wish I was as strong as Lillian.

Thanks for suggesting this one. I wouldn't have even heard about it let alone picked it up.

[SusanH]

Maribeth, I have to thank you for posting your thoughts. I read the first two chapters and my interest waned. I put it down and wasn't sure I would pick it back up, but after reading your post I decided to give it another try. About halfway through I got completely absorbed and couldn't put it down. The path her life took is truly fascinating. It's made me curious about her other academic writing, some of which I've heard of but never read. I also want to read Nicky's book.

All in all, a great read!

[Caryl]

Nicky had a book published?? I don't think I've gotten to that part yet!

I wrote this on Monday, just as I was starting part three, but I didn't havea chance to post it until now:

Ms. Faderman has certainly had an eventful life so far – and she’s only just starting college now in the chapter I’m reading. I am impressed with how she’s learning to take care of herself – helping her mother to find a companion, going to see Maury Colwell to work on sorting out her life. She writes with such honesty and is gentle with herself as she matures. (There’s no “can you believe I was this stupid?” feeling in her writing. She describes the decisions she makes by looking through her eyes at the time, and explains her reactions to situations she finds herself in just as she saw it happening.) I love the self-discovery she is going through, how she is learning who she is vs. how society and her mother and aunt want and expect her to be.

This book has made me think about how memoir writing works. She remembers so many details from her life, and describes the scenes so vividly. I wonder how much in her life actually happened this way, and how her memory of each event has affected the telling of her story. How do you write dialogue in a memoir when you really don’t remember exactly what people said most of the time? Do people who write memoirs actually have incredible memories, or did they keep diaries with faithful accounts of their lives? I’ve saved old journals, papers from college, etc., and I wonder sometimes if having those things would help me to better recall old scenes from my life. I look forward to going through it all some day.

Some of the passages are in italics, and I’m trying to determine why she separates them from the main text this way. Often she’s describing a dream or a memory, and I think most of them are written in present tense. Sometimes it feels like the piece was written to stand on its own, and then was added to her memoir as it was originally written.

I am looking forward to getting through this last section of her book to see how she ends up becoming an academic. I can see hints of this interest for her as she gets older – reading plays in the back of the classroom, her interest and skill in drama and oral interpretation, her attraction to Mark and his knowledge and passion for history, art and other cultures.